The most iconic symbol of Christmas is, of course, Santa Claus. Well, at least he is once you’ve removed those pesky little religious overtones from the holiday. The image of Santa is a universal one: big, fat, old guy, dressed in garish holiday red, with way too much facial hair. Jolly is an important part of the Santa image too. Otherwise that description could fit your uncle who molested you as a child. Not unlike most cultural icons of the day, the world once again has the U.S. to thank for the big guy in red. Santa Claus is an American invention.

Yeah, yeah, the Santa myth was part of the world’s collective consciousness before the U.S. even existed. But like the myth of the British Empire, once America came around that fairy tale was finally laid to rest, forgotten and discarded for a newer and better version. It wasn’t that the old version of the jolly old elf was bad, but rather his thin aesthetic image and taciturn countenance didn’t really hit the warm-fuzzies mark.

Historians believe the original Santa was a Catholic Bishop in a small Roman town in what is now Turkey. Born in the year 270 A.D., he gained his lofty status as a young man dedicated to helping the poor throughout his life. Canonized after his death, Nicholas became Saint Nick and was named as the patron saint of children, sailors and all of Greece. Usually depicted wearing the traditional red cape of a bishop, he remained a popular figure of worship through the Middle Ages, with elaborate feasts held each year on the date of his death – Dec. 6 – and small gifts given to children in his honor.

During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation craze swept Europe and veneration of Catholic saints was suppressed. St. Nick and his fellow demigods got voted off the island, except for in The Netherlands where his ideal was kept alive in the form of Sinterklaas, a kindly man who traveled from house to house on the evening of Dec. 5, leaving treats or presents in children’s shoes in exchange for a snack for his horses. Still a somewhat younger and more slender version, Sinterklaas wore red bishop’s robes as in the old tales but elfin assistants were added to his myth along with a team of horses to ride over rooftops before the man in red slipped down the chimney to deliver gifts. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Sinterklaas arrived in the U.S. along with Dutch immigrants and it was time for Santa’s extreme make-over.

By 1773, like many newcomers to Hollywood suffering from a bad moniker, the slightly sinister sounding Sinterklaas morphed into Santa Claus and he started packing on serious poundage. By the early 1800’s Santa was no longer a young lanky bishop, but a portly, jolly old elf instead. He gained his ‘bowl full of jelly’ status thanks to Clement Moore’s 1822 poem, A Visit from Saint Nicholas – more commonly called Twas the Night Before Christmas. And Clement switched out his horses for a magic sleigh powered by reindeer, too.

The final touches to Santa’s new image came almost one hundred years later when the coke-heads working in the ad department over at Coca-Cola came up with one of those drug-induced flashes of brilliancy, and the red-suited fatty replete with white-fur trim and leather boots and a hat that at any other time of the year would be called a dunce cap, was born. So yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And it’s all thanks to an American 1930s ad campaign for a product that brought narcotic use to the masses. Ho, ho, ho.

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